Instructional design for multimedia learning

Since Instructional Design (ID) has been an established discipline in European countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium or the United Kingdom for more than 20 years, it seems only natural that it is getting more and more important in the German-speaking countries as well. In order to produce efficient learning environments for multimedia learning, systematic planning is necessary. At this point, Instructional Design - based on the ideas Robert M. Gagné developed more than fifty years ago - seems to offer interesting solutions. The process of designing and developing such environments includes strategic decisions concerning the technical base or the overall pedagogical orientation and ending in the choice between fonts and colours. ID is also concerned with methods and tools to support design activities, organizational aspects, the competencies and attitudes of the designers, variables of the context, problems of the dissemination and implementation of new educational procedures as well as the questions raised by the efforts to evaluate different aspects of e-learning in all its variants. The contributions to the 5th International Workshop of the SIG 6 „Instructional Design“ of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) in Erfurt in 2002 compiled in this volume try to offer some solutions and raise new questions. A lot more empirical research remains to be done and there is still a lack of new theoretical models. This research gap offers a chance to new colleagues, especially from countries not yet represented in the scientific community of ID, to contribute their ideas.